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“For American deniers, it’s more complex. When Americans deny genocide took place in America, they often are not doing so from malice, but ignorance. Most are actually repeating the poor, heavily whitewashed, and highly censored and sanitized schooling they had, and thus are blameless.
But many other Americans often are no different in motive than their anti-Semitic or Turkish nationalist counterparts. American pride often demands the Myth of American Innocence, the ludicrously unlikely claim that every American has always been as innocent of wrongdoing as an infant, or perhaps Jesus himself. In recent years, there has even been the bizarre resurgence of an idea discredited in academia for two generations, American Exceptionalism, with fealty to a patently absurd claim to unique American virtue. Genocide denial in America is a product of cognitive dissonance. Genocide in America is denied because it is uncomfortable to admit to it if you strongly believe in American patriotism.
There was no such genocide denial while the most obvious forms of physical genocide were going on, when it was openly called or even celebrated as the extermination of inferiors and heathen savages. Only after the worst and most blatant of mass murders ended did the denials begin.
This denialism grew stronger over time, in the name of colonialist nostalgia and hagiography for American Founding Fathers. Nomadic conquerors from Europe and their descendants transformed into “settlers.” The true settlers, indigenous people building and living in established nations, are depicted as “nomads” who magically vanished away like snow in the spring, their genocide supposedly natural, its perpetrators unmentioned, but obvious to any discerning eye.
America is mostly a nation in denial about the genocides (yes, plural) that took place on its own soil. American is mostly a nation in denial about genocides carried out by some of its people, including governments and leaders. This denial is taught by most of its schools and teachers, and led by and enforced and reinforced by its leading commentators, journalists, politicians, and even scholars.”
– HVY, Genocide Denial in America.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #16 – Genocide Denial.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country. Follow the series: Indian Country 52
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
